


If Winter Were so White

by ferrisulich



Series: The Dagroth's Devouring [3]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Adopted Son, Backstory, False Bottom, Gen, Ginger and Yearning, M/M, Paladin, Pre-Campaign, dumbasses to lovers, tired penguin, tragic backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:34:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24919171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferrisulich/pseuds/ferrisulich
Summary: A few snapshots of Shiro's life before he joined the party.AKA: my player payed me in memes to write out her backstory in full and I made her cry. a few times.
Relationships: Keith/knife, Shiro & Keith, Shiro & Snow, Shiro/drum, shiro/matt
Series: The Dagroth's Devouring [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1697272
Kudos: 6





	1. The Little Drummer Boy

The skies were clear for the first time in months, boasting the bright blue of clement weather and above zero temperatures. The sun was beating down from it’s high arc in the sky, making the tundra gleam with a thin layer of melted ice and snow, turning the barren landscape into a jewel, one huge crystalline surface. The glare was almost blinding, but the heat too good to complain about. Most the tribesmen had stripped their outer layers of furs and walked around in lighter skin parkas and leathers. Rosy cheeks and bright smiles graced everyone’s lips as greetings were shouted across the camp, for the first time in months not muffled by balaclavas and scarves. It was the first taste of spring after the hard months of winter.

Everyone knew the storms would come soon still. That the good fortune was not long lasting in such a climate. If Auril was merciful, they would get a week of rest, enough time to repair the tents and fix the sleds, before the next blizzard hit. Spring was always a temperamental mistress in the Crystal Planes, and one could do nothing but rejoice and weep in tempo. And rejoice they did. With the first melt came the first festivals. With summer on the horizon and mating season close, rationing could be broken and the stores of blubber and salted meats could be splurged on. The long winter months depleted their provisions greatly, especially if the fall before had been less then bountiful. The harder the winter, the less was left, but that didn’t dampen the spirits of the tribesmen. Even when the barrels were scrapped, the dogs starved, and the children gaunt, the night of the First Fire was a roaring occasion. This winter had been the hardest in years. Even the oldest of the tribe seemed close to breaking when waiting out the blizzards, huddled for warmth in the snowbanks. In those moments, the shelters dug into the ice felt more like cold coffins. The barrels had been dry for weeks before the first melt. They had eaten the emaciated dogs and even that was but short reprieve. The newborns had been left to Auril’s care, in the white wilderness of the tundra. And for the lives lost, the fires would burn the brightest.

Shiro knew his duty in times like these and, leaving the mending and preparations to the other tribesmen, took care in searching for a package from the depths of the sled bags. Hidden beneath a few spare stretched of cloth and the tanned skin tarp, was a most auspicious offering for Auril. Barely larger than his hand, Shiro carefully unwrapped the seal-skin lining, setting the drum on his knees as he sat on the sled ski. The small drum was the most ornate object the tribe had. Passed down through generations of tribesmen, the small instrument had been carved from wood from far East, and covered in elk skin, pulled taunt by locks of leather. Embossed around the edges, the design depicted the nomadic tradition of their people’s ways. Once brightly painted, now only a few flecks of gold remained in the crevices of the carvings, brushed away by generations of calloused hands. Still, the sound had only matured with age.

Shiro was not the only musician in the tribe, but was by far the most talented with the drum. Though others excelled at the bone flutes and shakers, his speciality was deep, resonating rhythms. His tempo was unmatched in the small family group, and he could play for hours, sweat beading at his temple in the firelight, fingers numbed from playing without his mittens (the sound was much richer skin to skin). He knew the tribal songs passed on from their ancestors intimately. Enough that he could vary them if he wished, but he never dared disrespect them in this way. He could feel the years down to his finger tips, the generations playing through him as he beat out the song of his people. The music of the nomads was sacred. 

‘What’s that?’ Came the youthful voice. Shiro looked up from his reverence and jumped at the sight. Keith was standing in front of him, wringing his hands in his mittens many sizes too big. He hadn’t shed his parka like the others, either because the lining was thinner as a hand-me-down, or he wasn’t used to the cold yet. He even still wore his heavy tuque, but that wasn’t what surprised Shiro. The kid’s hair was still growing out in uneven patches. It had been shaved in chunks when they had found him, to the blood in long lines that would scar along his scalp. It had grown back a bit, thick black hair that could have fooled most into thinking he was a child of the tribe, but it still looked horrible, and he had yet to allow anyone near him with a blade to remedy the situation. Slowly, Shiro reminded himself, slowly. And clearly, giving the kid space was giving results. This was the first time he had approached Shiro unprompted.

‘A ceremonial drum. It’s the first melt so I’ll be playing at the First Fire tonight.’ He explained, holding out the drum for Keith to see. ‘Its tradition.’ Keith nodded, looking shyly at the drum. He reached out tentatively but Shiro snatched it back.

‘Careful!’ He yelped, and Keith’s expression fell. But Shiro’s eyes turned conspiratorial and he leaned in to look the kid right in the eye. ‘Its cursed.’ Keith rolled his eyes so hard Shiro thought he might injure himself.

‘Yeah right.’

‘It is!’ Continued Shiro, holding the drum with much more care than was necessary. ‘It passed down through my ancestors, only my blood can play it!’ And he drummed his fingers against the top, just for effect.

‘As if.’ Keith was not buying it. ‘Those aren’t even blood runes!’ Shiro didn’t know what a blood rune was but the mischievous twinkle in the kid’s eyes was the most excitement he’d seen in weeks. Ever, actually.

‘Terrible fates befall those who try to play it.’ He intoned, in his most reverent tone, watching with glee as Keith crossed his arms and cocked an eyebrow. The kid had spunk, it had just been hidden beneath the layers of fear and trauma clouding his gaze that first night they had found him, bleeding in the melted snowbank.

‘Like what?’ The kid challenged.

‘Like… All your hair falls out.’ He said, and watched with horror as the kid’s expression closed. He backtracked with a furor. ‘And you skin turns blue. And you start coughing up bubbles.’ The twinkle was back, Shiro breathed a sigh of relief.

‘That’s not that bad.’ Muttered Keith and before Shiro had the time to blink, the kid dashed past him, and he wasn’t holding the drum anymore. He blinked down at his hands for a moment, stunned, then turned, following the shallow steps in the snow. The kid had practically flown past him. Tentative thumps sounded from a few steps away, and sure enough, there was Keith, crouched in the snow with the drum balanced on his knee, tapping it experimentally with the end of his mitten. His tongue was sticking out at the side as his focus narrowed.

‘It works better if you take those off.’ Chuckle Shiro, who suddenly found it hard to talk past the strange warmth in his chest.

‘It’s too cold.’ Muttered Keith without looking up. Shiro scoffed.

‘It’s the warmest it’s been in months!’

‘It’s still too cold.’

‘You’re impossible.’

‘You’re all just crazy. Living in an ice desert. If nothing grows, nothing’s meant to survive.’ Shiro chuckled, but the sound died in his throat as he wondered for the umpteenth time how the kid had ended up out here, in the midst of the Scarred Valley, the vast splintering glacier between the Edge and the low mountains of the West. Keith must have noticed because he bit his lip and did his best not to meet Shiro’s eyes. The man was once again astonished by how perceptive the boy could be.

‘Can… Can you show me?’ Keith asked, so low Shiro wouldn’t have heard it if he hadn’t been overanalyzing the kid’s clear traumatic backstory.

‘How to play?’ He asked. Wasn’t he just full of surprises today. Keith nodded and held out the drum. Shiro took it carefully and pointed to the fire.

‘It’s warmer there. You’re hands wont freeze off.’

The tribe paused in their busywork when Shiro began to play. Just a slow tempo, an easy song that would be easy to teach. It was a song the children often sang in circles when the camp had settled and the food was stewing. There weren’t many slow moments in such harsh climate. There was always something to do, wether it be hunting, mounting and demounting tents, settling the dogs, mending and healing, praying. Yet, the nomads of the crystal planes had a rich culture. It was a gift of Auril, or perhaps in spite of their God’s attempts to smother them beneath a layer of fresh snow. The beading and seams of each of their coat was careful and beautifully crafted. They would not settle for surviving, not matter the hunger sitting in the pit of their stomachs. Living, was so much more.

The song ended and Shiro noticed the small crowd that had gathered, their tasks still in hand, paused in a moment to enjoy a sliver of that living that had been missing during the harsh winter. Shiro thought he saw a few tears glimmering in the eyes of his tribesmen, but perhaps it was just the reflection off the snow. He breathed through the swell of pride in his chest as a few muffled claps went around, heat pinking his cheeks, he knew. Keith’s expression was morphing from awe to light teasing at the sight of Shiro’s embarrassment. He wasn’t shy, but he hadn’t meant to take people away from their day.

‘Just practicing for tonight. Sorry.’ He waved away the crowd with a chuckle and Keith was halfway rolling his eyes again when the chief walked up. Keith’s back straightened with a snap and swallowed thickly, and Shiro tried not to laugh.

‘You sound a bit rusty, son.’ Said Shiro’s father, just loud enough to gather a few good-natured chuckles from the departing crowd. Even Keith stifled a laugh.

‘Hilarious.’ Shiro deadpanned, but the smile didn’t leave his lips as he noticed Keith eying the drum hungrily. The chief must have as well because he slammed a heavy hand on the boy’s back that nearly sent him toppling to the ground.

‘Give the kid a shot! He might give you a run for your money.’

‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’ Seconded Shiro, and Keith’s face went bright red.

‘I.. I don’t know about that. I’ve never played something like this before…’ His eyes darted between the Chief, Shiro, and the tip of his boots. Shiro gently set the drum on his knee.

‘Just feel it out, the tempo is the most important part.’ He instructed, and Keith gave him a sceptical look.

‘It won’t sound like you.’ He protested. The chief gave a laugh.

‘No one sounds like him. He was practicing before he could talk. Years under his belt.’

‘Because he’s so old.’ Supplied Keith.

‘Ancient.’ Nodded the chief sagely.

‘Dad! You’re older than me!’ Yelled Shiro, offended beyond his years. But his father only swatted the comment away with a wave of his hand and headed back off towards the tents, leaving Shiro and Keith to their drumming. Keith still looked unsure, but with an encouraging nod from Shiro, gingerly slipped off his mittens and flexed his frozen fingers. The first few thumps were tentative, then, they grew in confidence. He gathered a few curious glances from the tribesmen walking by, but the attention didn’t seem to deter him. Once he’d tested out the different sounds the drum could make, Shiro started painstakingly teaching him the kid’s tune he’d played earlier. They went back and forth with the drum, Shiro playing a first part, and Keith doing his best to replicate it. It became quickly apparent, however, that Keith had no skill whatsoever.

Shiro was stunned. The kid was deadly with a blade, fought like a dancer, and seemed to have an ear for music because the sounds really weren’t that far off. But for some incomprehensible reason, his playing was just plain horrid. Shiro tried to keep an encouraging smile on his face, but the occasional wince filtered through and he could see Keith loosing steam before they’d even reached the halfway point in the song. Even the tribesmen were giving them a wide berth when walking by the fire. His heart broke a little for the kid, he’d seemed so excited to learn.

‘Maybe we should stop.’ He muttered dejectedly. Shiro, seeing his closing expression made one last ditch effort.

‘No! You’re improving quickly. It’s tricky to get the handle of.’ But the words felt weak even to him. Keith held the drums out for Shiro to take, looking too lost for his terrible playing to be the only thing bothering him. Shiro knew he shouldn’t push it. Keith had been coming around, to press the issue now could make him regress. But Shiro couldn’t stand the sight of walls going up behind the kid’s eyes.

‘It’s okay. I wasn’t great when I started out either. It takes time, practice.’ Shiro reached out. Keith gave a scoff somewhere between disbelief and disdain. His eyes were trained on the fire, but Shiro could tell his thoughts were elsewhere. So he did the unthinkable: he put a hand on Keith’s shoulder. The boy jerked like he’d been struck, but Shiro stayed firm, his grip solid, unwavering, present. Keith’s gaze shot to him, and Shiro almost broke seeing the unshed tears in the boy’s eyes. Keith’s mouth was pressed firm, as if he was trying to hold back words, so Shiro gave his shoulders a squeeze, and they opened just a little.

‘I don’t have that kind of time.’ Whispered Keith, choking on the last. A single tear rolled down his cheek and he brushed it away furiously. Shiro’s heart seized in his chest and for a second he wasn’t sure what to say to that. He flitted through a few dozen different emotions, anger, fear, guilt, before settling on precautious hope.

‘It’ll still be two weeks before we meet up with the other tribe.’ He said, ‘I bet you could learn the song in that time. I’m a good teacher.’ As if they were still talking about the drum. Keith shook his head stiffly.

‘I’m a slow learner.’

‘I’m sure there will be someone in the other tribe who could teach you. It’s a popular song.’ But Keith shook his head again and Shiro really latched onto that little bourgeoning blossoming hope in his chest even though he knew better than to be optimistic. The very nature of their existence in the Crystal Planes was due to a realistic outlook. Yet, as he watched the silent tears fall past the boy’s chin, Shiro took hold and didn’t let go.

‘No one as good as you.’ Keith managed to say.

‘I could go with you.’ He said, and Keith’s gaze jerked up to find his, disbelief painted across his youthful features and old eyes.

‘What?’ He breathed.

‘It would be a few months’ travel with the other tribe as they head North. I know a few of the tribesmen and I don’t think they would mind me going along.’ He shrugged, as if he hadn’t just offered the boy months of his life.

‘That’s so long.’ Keith moaned, and his head dropped between his hands.

‘The tribes meet again next spring.’ Soothed Shiro, but that must have been the wrong thing to say because the boy’s shoulder started to tremble with barely contained sobs. ‘Hey, hey, it’s not that long. You’ll be out North by the time the leaves fall. I hear that’s what trees do in autumn.’ But that only made it worse and Shiro was at such a lost he started trying to make eye contact with the tribesmen going by, but no one was ready to lend him a hand with the crying boy he had accidentally adopted. ‘I don’t… I don’t understand.’ He finally admitted.

‘I don’t want to go.’ Keith cried, and Shiro caught the words between the tears and held them in his heart for the fragile things they were.

‘You don’t?’ He repeated, just to be sure, just to hear it again. Keith’s head lifted from his hands and Shiro did not like the pain he saw there.

‘I’m sorry. I’ve been eating your food, wearing your furs. I’m taking what is yours. I should leave.’ And he actually stood up as if he was going to walk out into the tundra and never turn back, and the thought scared Shiro to the point that he grabbed the boy’s arm to keep him from doing just that.

‘No, Keith…’ He started but the boy shook his head.

‘I’m so sorry. I’ll leave. I don’t want to burden you.’ His words were harsh and cold and froze Shiro more than the frost bite did.

‘You’re not a burden Keith.’ He said, ‘You’ve never been.’ He reaffirmed, shaking Keith from the grip on his arm as if it would shake some sense loose in the boy. Keith looked up hesitantly.

‘But I can’t play the drums.’ He whispered, and Shiro tried not to chuckle because it really wasn’t the time. Instead, he took on a very serious expression and said,

‘That’s okay. I’ll teach you. How ever long it takes.’ 

‘Years?’ Keith asked.

‘A lifetime.’ Shiro answered.


	2. Homebound

The wind sliced across the frozen landscape like blades, cutting to the bone the two nomads who dared cross the barren tundra. The cold incrusted itself between the folds of their parkas, in the crevices between layers, kissing the poorly covered skin with its icy lips. The leather of their goggles was brittle to the touch, their balaclavas, frozen, the shallow warmth of their breath long ago turned to ice. The sky was an impenetrable grey. Not the glistening blue of daylight, or the murderous white of storm, but the grey of endless cold. The temperatures had dropped below survivable the night before, and hadn’t risen since. Still, the two figures carried on their trek across the land of ice and crystals, the wind kicking up clouds of snow to smother them.

The shorter figure followed the larger one a few paced behind, stumbling every few feet in the knee-high snow bank, the most traversable of passes. The taller figure rarely turned back to help the other, but could often be found throwing careful glances to the younger, their expression hidden by the layers of fur and lining. The wind was too loud to speak over, so the carefully developed language of gesticulation was common in these parts. The taller figure pointed to the towering ridge they’d been running along for the last few hours, their narrow stretch of ice level with the sea and privy at any moment to cave into the frozen depths of the ocean.‘We break, beyond the next bend, away from the wind.’ His mittens said. The shorter figure shook its head, pointing to the horizon, to the barely visible outline of the towering spire of Nevirande, more a mirage than anything else.

‘No, we can continue, we can make it.’ Said the hard glass of his goggles, the defiant tilt of his chin. The taller figure paused, and looked out to the horizon, to the white crystal tower, barely distinguishable from the glacier it had been carved from. Their gaze feel back to their companion, visibly shivering under their furs. They shook their head once, decisively, and pointed to the ridge they knew to offer shelter around the next ledge.

‘We stop. We rest. We will reach it tomorrow.’ The girth of their shoulders didn’t leave much room for debate, and the younger nodded, motioning the older to lead the way.

The trek beyond the outcropping of ice took hours, trudging through the deepening snow and dropping temperatures, beyond what was thought possible. The glacier stuck out into the ocean, crossing their path and meeting the crashing waves, sending sea spray to meet their disappointment. High tide. The sun never set in this season, only dipped towards the horizon before gaining momentum and rising once more to its apex in the sky. Their current spot was too open to the elements, the wind beating their still forms with gales of ice. They quietly unclothed, bundling their parkas and boots, and securing them to the straps of their packs. The swim was deadly, the cold inhuman. The wavering sight of Nevirande in the distance, the only thing keeping either of them awake and resisting the inviting embrace of darkness at the edges of their vision. At least is was mercifully short, only a few hundred metres before the next patch of ice allowed them to crawl onto its back. The taller figure shook, dropped their belongings in the snow, and turned to drag the limp body of their companion onto the ice. He rubbed a semblance of feeling back into the drenched and frozen limbs of the younger, until he was able to stand on trembling legs, stuff cramping feet into his pants, frost bitten arms into the sleeves of his parka. They continued on, a quiet settling over the two, between which not even the clatter of teeth could be heard.

The taller was sporting a noticeable limp by the time they reached the shallow cave in the glacier’s cliff face. A bitter reminder from the fall that took them off course after an encounter with a beast from the ice. Nevirande was no more than a day’s trek away now, but going around the plateau rather than across had cost them a week, and the rest of their provisions. The youngest had a knack for survival, probably what had saved them in the long run, and had managed to catch a few fish they had salted and rationed. The boy pulled out the last two strips, mostly skin and salt with a meagre slice of flesh, after divesting himself of his heavy cowl and furs in the shelter of the ice cave. He handed one to the man who took it with a tight smile, sitting gingerly with one leg laid out.

‘Thanks.’ Shiro had wiggled out of the sleeves of his parka that pooled around his waist, his fingers numb, but warmer than they had been in his sodden mittens. He debated starting a fire, if it was worth using up the last of their fluid and starter. Dark eyes peered behind stark white bangs at the boy blowing softly on his blue-tinged fingers. Cheeks hollowed from their journey, dark hair growing long into more of a mullet than a warrior’s braid, stuck to his forehead and neck from sea water and sweat. He looked tiny and gaunt, surrounded by his furs. Shiro pulled out the last few scraps of seal fat and a half-empty vial of alchemists fire. The boy’s eyes caught the glint of glass and was about to object when the first flame leapt up and gave the first true feeling of warmth either had felt in days. The boys eyes slid shut and Shiro watched the fire light dance across his eyelashes.

‘Does it still hurt?’ The boy asked. Shiro’s attention diverted from sucking on the fish skin in an attempt to satisfy the hunger that had become too familiar. The boy’s sharp eyes were trained on the makeshift bandages that peaked out from the tears in Shiro’s snow pants they hadn’t had the time or thread to fix.

‘It’s fine Keith, really.’

‘Liar.’

‘Twerp.’

‘Grampa.’

‘I’m not that old!’ Shiro exclaimed with exasperation and a soft smile. Even Keith’s lips had quirked upwards in a rare display of amusement. The older of the two suddenly wished he could freeze the expression there, like the walls of ice around them, frozen in a priceless moment of elation. Keith’s eyes flickered back to the bandages and his expression fell.

‘I’ll be better once we get to Nevirande, they have healers there.’ Shiro assured the younger with a sigh. Keith didn’t seem convinced, but his eyes did flicker with interest. Shiro saw the debate wage on the boy’s youthful features. In the end, curiosity won over.

‘You’ve been before, a lot.’ It wasn’t a question, but Shiro found himself nodding anyway.

‘Many times.’ He had the leather bands braided into his hair, tied to his parka, looped around his wrists and neck to prove it, each adorned with colourful beads and dyed feathers. He wore them with the pride of a trusted leader, a friend. Keith gnawed at his bottom lip, a soft blush giving color to the unnatural pallor the frost had left behind on his features after stealing his vigor. Shiro gave him time. In the months since their meeting, he had come to know the boy’s moods and temper. Guessing and pressing him would only make him clamp up tighter than the frost clams that grew on the underside of glaciers in Horizonfall Bay.

‘Was it ever…’ A pause, a weighted moment over the soft glow of burning blubber. ‘Like your parents?’ Shiro blinked, surprised. Something warm churned in his gut, like a mouthful of ice wine swallowed too quickly.

‘You mean…’ He swallowed, trying to decipher the boy’s expression, but for the first time in weeks found it to be a new expression he had yet to catalogue. ‘For love?’ Keith nodded once, his head bobbing but his eyes never leaving the heavy whale-bone bead that rose and feel with Shiro’s breathe, resting at the crux of his collarbones. His thumb found it absentmindedly. It was smooth from years soft touches and careful handling, of a lifetime of wet snow and planes of ice.

‘It’s my clan mark.’ He explained, realizing how Keith might have misconstrued it. ‘It was given to me at birth, marking me as part of my parent’s tribe.’

‘Like a token.’ Keith answered under his breath, eyes still fixed on the necklace, but clearly somewhere else.

‘A what?’

‘Nothing.’ He muttered, and Shiro knew not to push when his expression closed like this. Silence came and settled over them, and with it, the howling of the wind outside the cave’s mouth, the crashing of the waves against the ice bank, the splintering of glaciers in the bay like fireworks without the display, loud cracks in the night but no color. The blubber burned out, leaving nothing but the memory of warmth and the charred smell of animal fat. Shiro tightened the bandages on his leg and busied himself with gathering his parka and sac. They would walk through low light, hopefully make it to Nevirande before the hunger caught up to them, faster still, than the exhaustion. Keith stood facing the elements at the cave mouth, bundled up, standing taller still, every day.

‘I hope you do.’ He said, and Shiro had to struggle to grasp the words stolen from his lips by the gales and snow.

‘Hope what?’ Asked Shiro, maybe because he needed to hear it. Keith turned and Shiro watched the past burn in his irises.

‘I hope you travel to Nevirande for love one day. I hope you wear his braid with honour.’ Something stronger than leather and beads made of bone tied them together then, in that moment. Shiro nodded.

‘So do I.’

They made it to Nevirande by sun high the next day, the tower glistening in the rays like a thousand jewels. The cold was biting, but the relief was stronger. They trudged up the glacier to the cliff, and then to the hall within the tower that reached the heaven. The bells run out onto the frozen tundra and reverberated across the land, to be heard for miles in every direction. The ocean met them at the dais on the sea, and Keith laughed as the sea spray drenched them, and Shiro marvelled at the sound, a single whale-bone bead resting on the boy’s heart.


	3. Of Blades and Blood

‘It’s just beyond the next crest.’ Encouraged Shiro, the weather leading itself to proper conversation for once, and allowing him to simply speak normally, having pulled down the cowl of his parka.

‘How do you know?’ Frowned Keith, his eyes fixed on the horizon. The warmth was uncanny for the season and he had divested his tuque, letting wild black hair to flow freely in the cool wind. It hadn’t been cut since they began their trek, when Keith had last allowed Shiro near with a blade to even it out, and was now long enough to pull into a top knot if he so wished. Shiro pretended he never saw the emblazoned hair pin in the boy’s things. He knew Keith would tell him in due time. 

‘The sun, the weather,’ he explained instead, tracing the arc of the celestial object with one gloved hand, ‘the tribe follows the herds and its getting close to spring. They are travelling to their mating spots, and so do we.’ He’d taken his deep shaman voice meant to inspire trust and reverence, but his answer didn’t seem to satisfy Keith all that much who kept a skeptical eyebrow raised. Shiro tried again. ‘The next rise is high enough to see the whole valley. Adam told me they would be here before we left.’ 

Keith nodded. That, he could believe. Shiro’s navigational skills were what had gotten them stuck contouring the ice cliffs in the first place. 

The next rise was more of a small mountain than a hill, and Keith, for the first time since his arrival in the Crystal Planes, was seriously considering shedding his parka from heat. The sweat was gathering on his brow, running down his back, and he could just imagine the icy breeze running through the split seams of his tunic. The idea was almost pleasant if the subsequent frostbite wasn’t so dissuasive. The climb was steep and the snow was deep from the last heavy blizzard they had waited out back down in the lower valley a few days ago. If the trek to Nevirande had been perilous, the trek back was a death sentence. Auril could not be clearer about her displeasure with Keith joining the tribe than if she were to smite him right where he stood. Yet, the whale bone bead resting against his chest below the layers upon layers of skins and furs, lightened his step like little else ever had. The kid was practically skipping up the side of the mountain towards the crest Shiro had pointed out. Even the older of the two found his pack easier to carry, even if it did contain renewed provisions and gifts from the Elders to their chief and fellow tribesmen. Really, who was a God to deny them this?

Shiro watched, amusement playing on his features, as Keith stumbled in the snow and got a face full. The boy shook his head, and at Shiro’s poorly hidden chuckle, chucked a half decent snowball at his head. His aim was impeccable, hitting Shiro directly in the face. The taller man was seriously regretting teaching him the secrets to the perfect ammunition. Still, age meant experience, and Shiro was quick to retaliate. Keith yelped and bolted, the snowball catching his lower back instead of the back of his head. A clear laugh rose ahead and Shiro’s heart seized in his chest yet again. That sound just wouldn’t get old. He left the younger boy get a head start, carefully crafting a snowball between his mittens. Keith’s laugh filtered back from the next rise. Shiro readied himself, a wicked grin on his face, the thrill of the chase already pumping through his veins. And then everything went quiet.

A soft breeze tussled the snow, kicking up a flurry, but didn’t even make a whistle. The sky was clear, the heat warming the glaciers, but even they refused to crack in that moment. Keith was quiet, facing the valley below.

‘Keith?’ Called Shiro, abandoning his half formed snowball in favor for sprinting the few yards uphill to the still figure of the boy. Keith had grown in the last year, lanky even in his puffy parka. Yet, he hadn’t outgrown his twitchy nature, always running his hand through his hair, playing with the edge of the dagger Shiro had gifted him in Nevirande, looking over his shoulder. Yet he stood perfectly still on the crest of the hill, like a shadow amongst others, growing long on the valley below. A chip of ice settled in Shiro’s gut. Instead of answering, Keith’s arm lifted, pointing to something in the sky that neither had noticed. A plume of black smoke, rising peacefully over the valley, streaked across the horizon. Shiro sprinted the last few meters, coming to a standstill beside the boy, and wished he hadn’t.

The valley was on fire. In the crux of the neighbouring mountains was the camp ground, just as Adam had said. The tents were placed in the traditional semi circle around the Chief’s, but instead of the steady fire usually burning in the center, was a pyre. Huge and deformed, slanting to one side where a wooden structure that might have once been a sled, burned almost white. The flames climbed so high it was hard to distinguish what was burning, but from the screams that filtered up to the rise, it was not hard to imagine. The sounds reverberated across the planes and met them at the crest of the hill, as if not two feet from their ears. Shadows in black overran the camp ground, pillaging, stealing, tearing the seems of their carefully crafter existence. The tribesmen were everywhere and nowhere at once: in the hands of the assailants, running for cover, face down in the pinking snow. A streak of red brighter than warrior’s paint had been drawn across the site, a figure in white lying too still at the end of the trail. A tremor of fear course through Shiro.

‘Shiro?’

He looked over at Keith, the sudden stillness that had overtaken him in the face of this horror, shattering like a blade of ice. Adrenaline coursed through his veins, potent when mixed with rage. He shook no longer from horror. Bloodlust did not have the same taste. His hands clamped around the hilts of his gutting knives, Shiro had already taken a step towards the carnage when he remembered his son.

‘Stay here. Out of sight. Safe.’ He ordered gruffly.

‘Like hell.’ Argued Keith, his hair already tied back into a warrior’s braid, cinched with soft leather and a single whale bone bead. He had the knife Shiro had gifted him at Nevirande in his hand, and lightning crackling in his expression. There wasn’t much Shiro could say, the kid had a right to fight for his family. He would not deprive the boy of that.

‘Stay behind me.’

‘Whatever old man.’

They raced down the side of the mountain like hellhounds on the scent of blood. The warrior and the wolf, sprinting across the ice planes as if blessed by Auril with the swiftness of ice gales, and the might of a blizzard. They rained down upon the masked assailants with the power of a thousand storms between them. Where Shiro was force and fury, Keith was swift and final. The eldest blazed a path through the wreckage while the youngest danced around the shrapnel. It was a chaotic balance struck between the two. The months on their trek had sharpened their skills, honed their minds, and hardened their bodies. The fight was brutal, but so had been the conditions, the unending snow, the haze of Nevirande always out of reach. The bite of a knife was nothing compared to the claws of an ice devil, the heat of the pyre more comfort than the blistering cauterizing of wounds in ice banks when their medical supplies had run out. This, they both thought, fending off the raiders in synchrony, was not the worth they had faced together.

The raiders fell one by one to the blood soaked blades of the duo, staining the snow until no amount of melt or fall could ever clean it of the marks of stolen life. They struck mercilessly until the screams had died and their muscles burned, the depravity scarred into their memories like a brand. Shiro’s chest rose and fell faster than waves in a storm, sweat mixing with blood at his temple, maybe his own, maybe not. His eyes scanned the ransacked village for his next target, a hunter scouring for prey. His parka had been ripped from his back at some point in the fray, and the frigid winds slices through his torn tunic, appeasing the sting of the nicks and cuts he had collected. A pin prick of awareness at the edge of his mind kept tabs on Keith who slinked up at his side. Shiro had seen his skill with a blade many times in their treks, when fending off wolf-bears, when ice fishing between the glaciers, when hunting in the planes. The boy was unparalleled, and Shiro knew he as only held back by the crudeness of his weapon. The arcs Keith drew in the cold air with his blade would be twice as deadly with something longer and heavier. The boy’s scrawny figure hid a strength that Shiro had only glimpsed at, a fire that burned brighter than the one around them.

’Shiro!’ Keith yelled, and Shiro awareness zeroed in on the boy, and on the blade hurling towards his head. He ducked quick, flattening himself in the snow, the knife missing the top of his skull by half an inch before inbedding itself to the hilt in the neck of a raider who had snuck up from behind the last standing tents. Shiro’s breath came out long and low in a small puff of white. He jumped back up, his own weapons in hand, scanning his surroundings but the threat had been neutralized. He nodded his thanks to his kid.

The fires still burned around them, the smoke thick and black, a sight Shiro had never thought to behold in the Planes. Crumpled figures in snow had faces Shiro tried not to recognize, yet couldn’t help but glimpse at, gut clenching at every familiar feature. He knew he was looking for his father in the stone cold set of eyes, frozen in death in every face he found. He knew others were fighting around him, flashes of white furs and bone in his peripheral vision, always followed by the smear of black armour and red sashes. War cries rung out over the crack of splintering timber, the smell of charred blubber and something toxic hanging hanging heavy in the air. Shiro coughed, dislodging the soot from his lungs, and went to retrieve the knife from the raiders body. He pressed his heel heavily on the emblem sown into the front of the woman’s black robes, a closed fist in red thread, and yanked the blade from her neck. Blood the same color as the mark dripped onto the snow, as if claiming it even in death. A snarl curled Shiro’s lips.

The next two assailant burst through the thick cloud of smoke, weapons raised and raining down on Shiro before he could lift his own. Keith was there faster than should have been possible. The snap of bone rung out like a chime, followed by the mat sounds of flesh hitting flesh, ribs breaking, a neck yanked too far to the right. Shiro could barely stomach the sight as Keith stood over the limp body of one of the raiders, the man’s hair still gripped in his clenched fist. The second raider switched targets too quickly, his scythe slicing across instead of down on Shiro’s waiting knife. Keith had the instinct to step back, but not far enough to avoid the hit completely, as the blade dug into his side with a sickening squelch. Something tore thought Shiro’s chest then, a cry, a growl, something animalistic and primitive. His vision bled red like the blood spreading on Keith’s tunic, between his shaking fingers. He moved without thinking, the knife in his white knuckled grip. The raider fell back under the weight of the paladin, knees buckling, chest caving as the hilt dug into his diaphragm. Shiro tore it out, and slammed the blade into the man’s chest again, and again. There was a moment when he did not recognize himself, did not see the blood pooling around his knees as his own fault. He could only see the scythe cutting through Keith as his own flesh, his own blood.

‘Shiro.’ Called Keith, through ground teeth, just a breath. Shiro’s gaze snapped up from the bloody mess between his fingers, Keith’s knife still gripped in his hand. Instead of a red haze, his blood froze in his veins. Even the frigid ocean had been warmer than the sight awaiting him. Keith was on his knees, hands pressed against the gash in his side, a scythe poised at his neck. The raider standing above the boy had a smirk Shiro would never forget, eyes bloodshot and amber, yet colder than Auril could ever call forth. He lurched forwards, ready to do… Something. But the scythe bit Keith’s neck and the boy hissed and Shiro could not move if he had wanted.

’Bind him.’ The raider holding his son ordered in a language Shiro recognized from the trade routes to the East. Foreigners, invaders, two more appeared from the fire and shoved Shiro to his knees. They threw his knifes into the smoke and bound his arms tight enough for him to grunt, pulling his wrists up between his shoulder blades. He fought them still, pulling at his restraints, trying to smite the raider holding Keith with his will alone. He prayed, something he rarely did, and asked Auril for this single favour. Shiro would have done anything in that moment to have taken his place, to have bled in his steed. His son, his blood. Keith’s eyes were hard, by god he was proud of his son, and held no fear; they spat fire to the men manhandling Shiro, blood smeared across his cheeks like war paint, his hair falling out of his braid. The boy looked like a tribesmen, a warrior. The whale bone bead gleamed in the pyre’s light, resting on his heaving chest where the collar of his shirt had torn.

‘Put them with the others.’ Ordered the raider, jerking Keith to his feet, keeping the scythe too close to his carotid for comfort. Keith gasped just enough for the sound to catch, his grip trembling around his gash as he attempted to keep pressure on the wound.

‘Let him go, he’s just a kid!’ Roared Shiro, jerking in the steely grasps of the two men. The leader paused and something like surprise flickered across his aristocrats nose and high arched eyebrows.

‘You speak well.’ He said, and then that horrid smirk was back, the gleam in his sandstone eyes sharper than the blade at Keith’s throat. ‘You will translate.’

They were dragged across the destroyed camp, between the burning tents and bodies, to the edge of the semi circle where the survivors had been herded. Shiro’s heart was in his throat as he skimmed the faces there. Relief slammed into him as he spotted his father among them. Wounded, leaning on Shiro’s mother just to sit straight, but alive. The same emotion smeared across the bloody and bruised features of his parents as they spotted him, heartbreak at seeing him bound and broken. The leader motioned for them to be dragged forth, in front of the gathered tribesmen. He held Keith in a vice like grip, the edge of his scythe bitting the skin just below his ear and jaw. Shiro was shoved to his knees by a swift kick to the legs, a hand in his head jerking his head back to face his people, beaten and bloodied, in the place that had been their home.

’Tell them what I say.’ Ordered the leader, letting blood pearl on his blade to emphasize the consequence of his disobedience. Shiro did not grace him with a nod, but the man continued on as if he had. He bit the edge of his sleeve and pulled it back to his elbow, displaying the brand burned into his forearm. Scarred flesh drew the outline of a closed fist. ‘I come in the name of the Lord of Bane, Humkloor the Tyrant.’

His amber eyes flashed to Shiro who unclenched his jaw and forced out the words in the tongue of his people. They watched, frowning, huddling together in the pink snow. Shiro sealed his lips and the leader nodded, pleased. 

‘We had come in peace to retrieve what was ours, but you stood in the way of our mission.’ He said next, eyes taunting Shiro as he angled the blade at Keith’s neck, catching the light. Shiro bared his teeth.

‘He calls us savages.’ He said instead, spitting out the words to the uproar of his people. The raiders were quick to kick down the belligerent. Shiro watched his father get kicked in the gut, doubling over as he spat blood.

‘Though violence is not our way, we understand that sometimes it is necessary.’ Emphasized the leader, anger yet amusement simmering in his eyes. He turned to Shiro

‘Yet he is the one who kills if tempted.’ Said the paladin. The faces of his people darkened and hardened. 

‘Bare your arms. All of you.’

‘He wants to see our arms?’

‘Check the children.’ Ordered the leader to the raiders surrounding the tribesmen. The people gingerly removed their parkas, hiking up the sleeves of their tunics to show their forearms. Bruised skin, scarred skin, unmarred skin of the youth, none seemed to please the raiders who filtered through the kneeling crowd, jostling and manhandling to examine more closely the children. Finally, one of the raiders lifted his head, and shook it, bowing in his failure to find what they had been looking for.

The leader’s smirk only grew, and he used the edge of his scythe to cup Keith’s jaw, forcing his head straight. Forcing him to look at the people who had taken him in, fed him, clothed him, called him one of their own. He pried Keith’s arm from his bleeding side, and held it out, tearing the sleeve of his tunic and revealing the scarred flesh on his forearm. Shiro tried not to flinch, but the sight sickened him. Branded on the inside of his arm, just below Keith’s elbow, was a crude skull, surrounded by drops which had been tattooed red like blood. Thick scars ran along the outside of the mark, where someone had tried to cut off the brand with the dull edge of a crude fish gutting knife. Some were still freshly scabbed over.

‘We come for the lost son of brother, the Lord of Bhaal.’ Announced the leader of the raiders, that sickening smirk spread wide across his face. Gasps spread through the tribesmen, who knew enough to put two and two together without Shiro having to mediate the exchange. Good thing to, because Shiro was otherwise occupied with the fury boiling his blood, the mark of the dead he was painting in his mind on the face of the bastard who dare touch a single hair on Keith’s head.

‘He is no son of yours!’ Shiro roared, jerking free from the grasp of his assailants, tearing his bindings by strength alone, imbued by rage. He charged the leader and slammed shoulder first into the stunned man, sending the both of them tumbling onto the ice, the scythe flying out of his grasp. The gasps turned to war cries, and his father was the first to stand, calling to his people to rally. The whole tribe rained down with the fury of a family scorned on the remaining raiders, leaving blood and sweat and carnage in their wake. They were outnumbered, practically unarmed, it was a loosing battle before it had even begun. The tribes were protected by the harshness of the elements, just as much as they were threatened by it. No one dared traverse the Crystal Planes, for death awaits all at Auril’s door, so war had no practice in such a place. These raiders were men of war, forged in the fires of belligerence, molded in the image of Tempus, and they had come prepared. They had minutes, seconds maybe, before they were overpowered once more.

Shiro slammed into the ground enough to loose his breath, the raider’s elbow coming up to smash into his sternum. He dragged in the oxygen through harsh inhales as he struggled to keep the leader pinned beneath him, to get to the other scythe still strapped to the man’s belt. The leader was taller than Shiro, but thinner, lanky in his clothing, meant to evasive and stealthy combat, not hand to hand. Shiro was mostly shoulder and muscle and should have pinned him by weight alone, but the other was slippery and kept managing to weasel out from his grasp. Shiro growled and slammed a first first down, catching the raider in the jaw. The man’s head snapped to the side, smirk sliding off his features. Someone grabbed Shiro from behind tried to pull him off, but his other hand was curled in the leader’s robes and was steel in the snow. The hands where suddenly lifted, and Shiro slammed back into the body of the leader, leading without another heavy fist to the man’s head, hitting the temple as his frost bitten knuckled split open, mixing the blood of enemies. The man was momentarily too dazed to react, and Shiro too the opportunity, ripping the second scythe from it’s sheath. The arms were back, more this time, dragging him back and off the body of the leader, but Shiro was not done. Not until he had scarred the man, not until he had gouged him

Shiro swung down with the end of the curve scythe, dragging it over the face of the leader. The guttural cry of agony that ripped from the man’s chest would be the closest thing to sooth Shiro’s soul from the blood his son had bled. They arms kept dragging him back, and with him, the scythe ripped across the raider’s face, slicing across his forehead, sinking into his eye socket, skimming to top of his cheek bone, leaving nothing by blood and gore and pain. The hands redoubled their effort, lifting him clear off the ground, pulling him away from the screaming leader bleeding onto his land. A first fist slammed into his jaw and Shiro finally noticed the raiders attached to the hands, the two black-clothed assailant that had been beating on his back, ripping his hair out in chunks, carving at his shoulder blades, trying to save their leader. Shiro swung out, and grasped a fistful of whatever his hand landed on - hair, cloth - and pulled down viciously. One of the raiders fell. Shiro followed with a punch backed by his full weight. The raider did not get up.

The second unscathed a long length of steel, a broad sword. This one was bigger, heavier, and the weapon fit. He swung, and Shiro jumped back and out of the way, letting the blade slice through the frigid air, singing its song of death. The raider swung again, Shiro fell back over the body of the other raider, the blade catching his chest in a shallow dig. The raider brought the blade down in a swooping arc and Shiro barely managed to roll away that it sunk into the snow and ice with a crack like the glaciers splintering in the bay. He needed something, anything, to parry it.

‘Shiro!’ Keith. Shiro spun, forgetting the advancing raider. Keith was there, in the fading firelight, framed in the burning village. He had a stolen sword in one hand, looking more comfortable amongst the ruin and wreckage, blood splattered across his torn tunic, the pale skin of his face, than he ever had amongst the tribesmen. His hair had fallen out of his braid completely, caught in the hot air, black strands burning orange at the edges. His eyes were huge in his face, old beyond his years, yet ageless all at once.

‘Run.’ Shiro breathed. ‘RUN!’ Shiro yelled. The edge of a sword tore from his shoulder blade to his waist, the pain dragging him to his knees.

‘Shiro!’ He was running, Keith. He was running towards them, towards the fight, towards the men who wanted to take him away.

‘Run Keith. Run and don’t look back.’

Shiro had the time to see his torn expression, see him shake his head. See him reach forward as another blow caught Shiro across the other shoulder, dragging him to his hands and knees. See him cry as he turned and ran into the smoke.

Before the hilt of a sword smashed across his temple, and the world faded to nothing.


	4. Architecture

‘Where am I?’

Silence. Something - no - someone, shuffling to his left, rearranging themselves on the hay and wooden slats.

‘In a cart.’ Came the voice belonging to the person. It wasn’t particularly deep, perhaps just on the cusp of manhood. A splash of youth, and the years added on by torture. The sarcastic lilt was unexpected, but appreciated.

‘But where?’ He asked again, voice gruff from screaming, and then disuse. A snicker to his right alerted him to the precedes of others. Shiro extended his senses in the darkness, tapping into the well of Auril’s magic still so brightly alive inside of him. Shadows moved and outlines distinguished themselves. Four, maybe five, of them, hunched over in the cart as it rattled along some road leading nowhere. The low roof was most likely a false bottom, things rattling above his head, shifting on the old wood.

’Somewhere between Hell’s sixth and seventh circle.’ Came the same voice, directly to his left. A hand brushed his arm, chains rattled in its wake. ‘Also, outside of the lordship of Bane. According to our two loud ass captors, on our way to Talona for god knows what reason.’

‘Only two?’ Shiro picked out from the exchange. He was pretty banged up after what Humkloor had deemed necessary incentive to get him to reveal Keith’s location. Shiro really wished he knew, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t pretend and make his captors fume. The fracture of his left shin was still healing in the makeshift splint someone had had the decency to make him.

‘Don’t get your hopes up. They drugged us before leaving.’ Shiro had noticed the faint wooziness at the edge of his consciousness. ‘Don’t move too quickly, I’ve already thrown up twice.’ That explained the smell. Shiro shifted slowly, to ease the tension in his neck from sleeping folded into a ball, and to try and extend his broken leg. He winced as something painful pulled in his side. ‘Also because if you tear your stitches I’m not sewing you up again.’

‘Stitches?’ Shiro asked, frowning into the darkness towards the voice. There was more shifting, and a hand blindly reached for him. Cold fingers touched his side, right above where the pain was radiating from. Shiro jerked at the contact, but the hand only drifted lower, below the edge of his tunic, cool skin against the blazing pain.

‘Good, you didn’t rip them. Be more careful. I already took a beating for you just to get the damn supplies.’ The voice whisper-judged. Shiro stared into the darkness for a good second.

‘Why?’

‘Basic math. There’s only so much torture to go around. The more we are, the less I get my face pounded in.’ He said it with the derision of explaining something obvious to a slow learner. Shiro was reminded of Keith for second, then shook the thought away. No, Keith wouldn’t be so rude about saving someone else’s life.

’Thanks? I guess.’

‘Yeah whatever. Don’t mention it.’

’Talona you said?’ Shiro asked after a moment. The slow trek of the cart over uneven ground was both enervating and straining his stab wound. The voice was a nice distraction.

‘Apparently.’

‘What are we going to do there?’

‘Enjoy the fucking architecture.’ He quipped, and Shiro chuckled and gasped as it pulled at his stitches. He settled for a less physically painful answer.

‘Sounds pleasant.’ He breathed through the burning, and the voice was momentarily silent. Shiro thought maybe he had insulted the guy somehow, but then the amused reply came like dawn to the endless night the last few weeks, months, had been.

‘Right? Maybe they’ll even let us see the light of day.’ Quipped the man, tone dripping in a sarcasm Shiro couldn’t help but find charming.

‘Nah, I haven’t missed it really.’ He answered, and the laugh that bubbled up from his companion did something funny to Shiro’s heart.

‘You’re right, me either. Who needs to know what day it is.’

‘Not me.’ They both chuckled, and an amicable silence settled over them.

‘I’m Matt.’ Said the voice.

‘Matt?’ Tested Shiro, feeling out the sound in his register. It sounded much rougher.

‘Matemondo Gershtaluv Holtentold is a bit of a mouth full.’ Said Matt with a humourless laugh.

‘Right.’ Because he wasn’t sure what to say to that, and was still preoccupied with rolling Matt’s name around his tongue.

‘You?’ Matt asked after a second.

‘Me?’

‘What’s your name?’ He spelled out.

‘Oh. Shiro.’ He said. A pinprick of sunlight pierced through a crack in the side of the cart, and he caught a glimpse of wild ginger hair. ‘Just Shiro.’ Matt settled more comfortable against the cart wall, his arm brushing Shiro’s.

‘Well Shiro, what did you think of the architecture of Bane’s cells?’

‘Lackluster.’

‘Right! They could have at least gotten some crown molding in there.’

‘Of some sconces.’

‘Yes. Sconces.’


	5. Last

The screams had eventually come to an end. The hours had dragged on for Matt, who, huddled in the cold, dark, corner of the cell, had done his best to pretend he couldn’t hear. Hands flat against the sides of his head, face hidden between his knees, but only so much could be blocked out. Rock walls tended to echo.

They’d come for the paladin in what Matt had assumed were the early hours of morning. There were no windows in the cell, or the lab beyond, but there were barely-there-variances in the temperature. The walls, already unforgivingly cold, would dampen and chill to subhuman temperatures, sucking any body warmth from its captors at night. During the day, the walls dried to harsh slabs the exact temperature of the metal table on which the witch tore them to shreds. The walls had been wet when they’d come for Shiro. Matt remembered, because his hair had been damp, sticking to his face, droplets running down his cheeks were tears didn’t dare travel. There was only so much torture and pain one could take before even the body gave up trying to understand. The walls were bone dry when the devil returned with the paladin.

The ghastly thing was the color of snow (or so Shiro had told him), eyes the deep scarlet of arterial blood. The witch was it’s master, the demon conjured from the lower planes and forced into servitude. She fed it with the useless corpses of her failed experiments. It’s hind legs bent at unusual angles, holding up a spindly demonic figure armed with talons as fingers. It was by those claws that the huge beast held up Shiro, piercing the thin fabric covering his shoulders, as the man hung limp in the demon’s grasp.

It threw the paladin onto the grimy cell floor with the ceremony of discarded meal scraps, nothing but slivers of bone and the awkward metal buckle. Shiro landed in a pile of limbs and blood and Matt felt his chest seize. The sight was not uncommon. They usually came for either Shiro or him when the walls were slick with accumulated moisture, so often that they had stopped fighting it, physically at least. Matt could only hold his tongue so much, no matter the disapproving glares from the mighty paladin. There would be a vague understanding of the passage of times of varying length, then they’d be returned to the cell in a state of post-human-experiment shock. Blood and the stench of the witches brews had almost become a welcoming smell, promising the return of the stolen prisoner. Matt had shaken awake the limp paladin more times than his scrambled brains could remember, and the fear never lessened with every occasion his eyes had taken a few seconds too long to flutter open. Shiro always made the most ridiculously relieved face at seeing Matt peering down over him with all the worry in the world cradled in the crease between his eyebrows, and the thought of seeing that expression again was what got Matt through the coldest of night when Shiro was indisposed as his personal heater. But this time was different, there was something wrong with him, more than the usual post-traumatic-bleeding-mess he would come back in. There was something wrong with his arm.

Usually Matt knew to wait until the demon had left. To rush forward, to show emotion, had been the downfall of many of their co-prisoners. Snark, belligerence, fine, but affection? The witch seemed to keep a special set of especially sharp tools for anyone who dared even linger too long on the idea of happiness. Yet, something in that moment overrode his hard earned instinct for survival.

‘Shiro?’ He called out, uncoiling himself from the fetal position which tended to keep the most heat, and reached out on his hands and knees for the limp form of the paladin. He lied face down, the tuff of white hair slick with sweat and blood, stuck to his forehead and hiding his eyes from view. Between the tears left by the demon’s claws, a carefully sutured line of thread kept the left sleeve of his tunic attached to the bodice. Peaking from beneath the sleeve was white gauze, tightly wrapped and pinned, stark in comparison to the grime and dirt of their surroundings. Even the color of Shiro's hair was too mated to be called white anymore. Only these bandages, so cautiously applied, with a care neither had known in weeks, months, stood out amongst the mess and martyr their lives had become.

Matt’s hand shook as it brushed the tangle tuff of white obscuring the paladin’s face, ‘Shiro?’ No reaction. He reached for the man’s shoulder, ‘Hey hot stuff, c’mon.’ his fingers brushing the edge of the white material. The reaction was immediate. A guttural cry escaped the no longer limp form of the man as every muscle in the paladin’s body seized at once, jerking him upright and away from the offending touch. Matt pulled back as if burned, but Shiro retreated to the other end of the cell as if wounded, clutching at his bandaged arm like caught prey. His eyes were wide and wild and jumped over every surface before landing on Matt’s face. He snarled.

‘Shiro?’ Matt whispered, dumbstruck by the man’s reaction. He took in the man’s appearance, now more dilapidated than last he had seen him. Gaunt from starvation, flecked with scars and wounds, the long gash across the bridge of his nose still healing poorly, all familiar, but his eyes were different. Usually calm, even playful at times, his pupil were blown wide with unadulterated horror. And, though Matt wasn’t sure, but he could have sworn they glinted violet in the candle light. He turned to the devil with a sneer that could have cut glass, survival instinct be damned. ‘What did you do to him?’

The beast was still standing in the cell door, perched on it’s hindlegs, beady bloody eyes always landing two feet short from it’s actual target. They were staring at a protrusion in the rock floor some two feet from Matt, face nothing more than a placid facsimile of polite demonic intention. It reached out one gnarly hand, and curled a bony finger topped with a claw the size of Matt’s hand.

‘Commmeeee...’ Rolled out from between its fangs, rushing across Matt’s skin like the sharp edge of a sword. He jerked back as a reflex, his back hitting the cell wall with the finality of an executioner’s swing.

‘Bite me.’ He snapped back, with more venom than his actions indicated, but he was nothing if not a tenacious bastard. Matt hadn’t giving an inch, not when he’d first gotten thrown into this grimy hellhole with not other company than a traumatized paladin and a witch with a scalpel fetish, not when he’d watched in a haze of agony the blasted women tear him open and sew him closed again, not when their fellow cellmates had each failed to knock back and forth their establish I’m-still-alive signals through the cave walls, not when Shiro had tried to convince him he was a top, and certainly not now.

’Temmmmptingggg…’ Grinned the beast, its smile spreading to encase the entire bottom half of its face, nothing more than an overlarge, salivating mouth. Matt readied a second verbal attack, but before something along the lines of ‘I get that a lot’ could dislodge itself from his rapidly closing airways, it lunged for his throat in a blur of white and spite.

Matt’s eyes shuttered closed instinctively. He’d always thought he’d face death with both middle fingers in the air, but life was a bitch, and sometimes when you asked for a devil to eat your face, they did. The cards fell like that sometimes. He quickly riffled through all the people he’d miss, or might miss him, and found that list rather terribly short. He wasn’t sure his parents or sister were even still alive, and everyone else had burned and blurred into the flames that had seared themselves onto the inside of his eyelids, bright white hot every time he closed his eyes. He didn’t have any regrets, at least not that he could think of in the milliseconds separating him from an untimely demise, and that thought comforted him. He’d never been much good at anything except avoiding dying in a miserable series of unforeseen accidents which had ripped everything else he’d ever cared about from his life, and even his luck had to run out eventually. Some people weren’t meant for more, and Matt was mighty fine with being one of those people. Not everyone was so single-mindedly tireless to the point of warping the world to his will. Matt really wished Shiro didn’t have to watch him die.

The hands on his shoulders were not what he was expecting. Sharp claws digging into his carotid? Sure. Rugged, familiar hands closing like vices around his arms in a bitter mimic of an embrace? Kind of hurtful if he was being honest. Maybe his mind was just trying to soften the blow and his otherwise dried up magical well had decided to give him one last taste of that sweet sweet illusionary magic which had gotten him into so much trouble when he’d been young and dumb enough to trust the first handsome fey to offer him magic and a night under the stars.

‘MINE!’ Roared out his captor close enough to his ear to pop an eardrum, in the guttural cry of a savage beast let loose upon fresh meat. Matt did not appreciate the connotations that he was the tender flesh in question. He also was not a fan of the fact that when he cracked an eye open, suddenly flat on his back and staring up at a wall of white, it was not the reptilian scales of the demon, but the matted strands that bordered on grey.

‘Shiro, what the hell?’ He yelled, arms coming up to shove the hulking man off the chest he was slowly collapsing, and Shiro’s face, which had been turned towards the cell door, snapped to his. Matt wished he’d kept his mouth shut. Fury tore at the man’s usually handsome features, distorting them into the mask of a beast, teeth bared like fangs, eyes bright with an insatiable hunger, purple definitely swirling in his usually brown irises. Matt’s arms froze where they’d been pushing at Shiro, fear closing in quickly on the remainder of his executive functions. It was her fault, was all he could think, it was that damn witch’s fault.

The man crouched over his prone body, the man who’d been Shiro not a handful of hours ago, snarled and ducked his head against Matt’s shoulder, his hands closing around his right arm. Matt snapped out of the weird daze that had ensnared him and started pulling away, trying to wiggle out of the man’s iron grasp.

‘I’m sorry,’ registered somewhere in the back of his mind as the hands on his arm tightened painfully.

‘Wha-‘ but the rest was lost to the choked yell that tore through Matt’s chest as Shiro wrenched his arm clean out of its socket.

Matt was pretty sure he’d blacked out at that point, because when the blood rushing through his ears finally dulled to a manageable white noise, and feeling had returned to his fingertips - and his shoulder which was burning something fierce, - the walls were wet again. Moisture had gathered on the stalactite hanging from the ceiling above him, and was steadily dripping onto his forehead. Matt momentarily considered lying there until the water eroded away at his skull and brain and ended him once and for all, but the stifled sob to his left was too heart wrenching to ignore. A shame, because the water would probably have been more efficient than the cliff, the sickness, the fire, the handful of swords and daggers which he just kinda lumped into the same category for the sake of brevity, the poison, that curse that one time, a couple months of torture here, being a human science experiment there, and his lover turning into a bloodthirsty beast, had been.

Still, he’d have to be a right bastard to let the man cry himself through who-knew-what nightmarish hallucinating was addling his brain. And Matt was a right bastard at the best of times, but even he wasn’t immune to the strange softness Shiro tended to glean from people.

‘Wha’s ‘rong?’ He mumbled, his mouth strangely parched considering his clothes were humid and frigid. The hiccuping stopped abruptly, and Matt found the strength, herculean as it was, to turn his head towards the curled up figure of the paladin. Neither were strangers to nightmares, pain induced hazes and hallucinations, even the occasional panic attack. Evil underground labs were breeding ground for post-traumatic disorders, and neither had been in particularly good mental shape when they’d arrived. Getting the shit beat out of him by the same man that had kissed away his tears on the worst of nights was new. Watching the paladin shake as he tried to quiet his own sobs in the darkest corner of their cell, was not. Matt strained to his knees.

‘Fuck-‘ His arm was definitely not going to cooperate anytime soon, ‘Gods almighty, you albino piece of shit.’ He cursed a few more times under his breath for good measure, wrenching himself upright. If a lifetime of agonizingly slow to heal injuries and surviving off of bare minimum medical care had taught him anything, it was to ignoring the pain. ‘I’m going to forgive you. I am. And when you think we’re all good and happy and well? I am going to bite your dick off for this.’ He muttered, more for his own sake than for the trembling mess of limbs making for a sorry sight in the far corner. ‘You heard me, you butt-faced bottom?’

No reaction from the crying paladin. Matt was running out of material quicker than usual, probably on account from the waves of pain radiating from the point where his shoulder used to be attached to his arm. A quick touch test that left him panting through an especially horrid wave of agony, taught him that the articulation had at least been set. Thankfully, he’d been unconscious for that part. Adding to that Shiro hadn’t watched him die, he was going to owe the universe a whole lot of favours.

‘C’mon hot stuff, give me something to work with here,’ he bartered instead, tipping more than climbing into a standing position and shuffling over the corner on knocking knees, clutching his shattered arm with his good one. He blew too-long ginger strands from his eyes where they had plastered to his forehead from the wet cave water, and slumped down next to the paladin, careful to leave a few inches of space between their knees and shoulders. He didn’t need a repeat of the first time he’d snapped the man out of a nightmarish haze and had ended up with two broken fingers and a new breath kink. To be fair, the fingers had healed quick and hadn’t left a scar. The same could not be said about the gash across the bridge of Shiro’s nose.

‘What is it this time?’ He asked, his bored tone tight as pain laced his words, ‘Bane? The raiders? Keith?’ The name had the expected effect and a sob broke through the harsh breathing pattern, ripping from Shiro's chest like torn stitches. It was rarely different with Shiro. He had to bleed out the infection before he could tend the wound. Matt let his head fall back against the cell wall. The demon was long gone,and the lab was quiet beyond the bars. There was no one but them for the foreseeable forever.

‘The wind is like a knife,’ Matt said in a sigh, thumbing the frayed edge of his shirt, ‘and if you stand long enough with your skin bare to it, you’ll bleed, like with a real blade.’ The words were almost rehearsed at this point, with how many times he’d said them. It had been a stoke of dumb luck the first time, but it always seemed to drag Shiro back from the dark pits he went to sulk in when he got like this. ‘Everything is white, impossibly so. There are cliffs made of nothing but ice, and they drop for miles, crashing into an ocean that’s colder than this cell. You swam in it once, with Keith, when you went to Nevirande with him. You said he sang when he laughed, and it sounded like the waves crashing against the ice cliffs.’

The sobs slowed marginally, and in the faint glow coming from the lab beyond which illuminated their own little square of hell, Matt could see the tears leaving tracks in the grime coating Shiro’s cheeks from behind his curtain of mated hair. He blew out a breath and fished his memories for the few more sparse details Shiro had whispered into his hair after an especially tender night.

’Sometimes, the snow piles up to your waist, and you strap these weird wire shoes to your feet to walk on it without sinking in. The slay dogs were your favourite animal in the planes, and you always tried to save the runt, no matter the time of year, even if it died more often than not.’

A hiccup. Okay, nicer topics, Matt scrambled for sweeter memories, ‘you had this drum, and you said you were the best in the tribe. You tried teaching Keith but he was absolute shit. You said you’d teach me one day.’

A soft hum, Matt took the moment and ran with it, ‘You kept telling me you’d take me one day. To meet your parents.’ He turned and searched Shiro’s expression for a clear gaze and recognition, ‘You said you wanted to take me to Nevirande, to show me the sea. The skies, you said there was so much sky, Shiro.’ Something hard lodged itself in his throat and he choked out the last words.

‘I want to see the sky again, Shiro. I want you to show me the sky.’

The man’s eyes flickered up to meet Matt’s, soft with tears and regret, and something bright that must have been relief. Matt’s shoulders dropped and he let a soft smile fall to his lips, even if it was more of a grimace what with his arm actively sucking the life out of him. Shiro’s own eyes flickered to the arm he was cradling and the relief dissolved.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he chocked out, but Matt was so glad to simply hear his normal voice that he waved it away.

‘Eh, you might think you’re hot shit, but even that walking corpse of a witch punches harder than you,’ he chuckled to himself, but Shiro’s expression only darkened. ‘Hey,’ he called out, and Shiro’s eyes snapped back to meet his, dark and tormented and everything Matt hated seeing there. ‘You okay? What did she do to you?’ This time.

‘Peachy,’ the paladin cracked the saddest smile Matt had ever seen, and the ginger only groaned in response, and didn’t point out that the man hadn’t answered the second part of the question. Hell, even he hadn’t told Shiro the extent of the damage the witch had inflicted him.

‘You’re killing me here.’ Matt answered instead, then cocked an eyebrow at the taller man, ‘quite literally.’

‘I’m sorry,’ He ducked his head again, voice strangled.

‘Yeah, you said that already. But you’re good now, right?’ Matt didn’t like the desperate note in his voice, but it wasn’t like he could hide it. The taller man nodded slowly, as if testing out his answer before saying it.

‘Yeah, I think so.’

‘Good, because you wrecked my good arm, so you’re gonna have to feed me by hand now.’ He surmised with a wry grin, but got a chuckle for his efforts. The sound was soft and musical, filling the dead space in the cell with a warmth unlike any other.

‘Only fair,’ answered the other, uncoiling from his cramped position, letting his long limbs stretch out in the small space. Matt let his good shoulder fall against Shiro’s only for the man to jerk away with a gasp. Matt sat up quick enough to make his head spin.

‘Shit, sorry, I forgot -‘

’S’okay,’ ground out the paladin through clenched teeth, blinking hard. Matt felt his heart sink at the sight of a purple swirl spark, and disappear in Shiro’s dark eyes. The man shook his head, as if to physically clear it, and racked a hand through his greying hair.

‘You’re starting to look too old to date me,’ threw out Matt in a vain attempt to diffuse the situation. Humor was his only weapon, and yet also the thing that got him into the worse kinds of situations. At times like these, it was his last ditch attempt at either restoring normality or throwing everything off kilter. At this point, Matt would rather face a world-ending event than seeing those violet swirls reapear in Shiro's eyes. A strained chuckled escaped the white line Shiro’s lips had pressed into, and his shoulders slowly dropped from where they had raised to his ears.

‘I’m okay,’ assured the old man, but Matt was far from convinced. Not that worrying would do him any good.

‘Do you want me to take a look-‘

‘No!’ Barked Shiro, and Matt’s extended hand dropped from the space where it had been hanging between them. Shiro blinked the vile purple from his eyes, looking, really looking, at Matt as if seeing him for the first time in the last minute. ‘I mean, no, its… its fine.’

‘Fine my ass Shiro, what the hell did she do to you?’

Speak of the devil and she shall appear, shuffling steps echoed down the long corridor that lined the cells. Matt’s pavlovian reaction was to flinch, and Shiro had a similar reaction, though he managed to make his seem that much more impressive and manly, because Shiro was six foot and some of muscle and faith, and Matt was pushing 5'4" mostly out of spite. They both jerked away from the bars and pressed back against the far wall. The steps dragged unendingly down the long line of bars and empty rooms before nearing theirs. Only one. She was alone. That couldn’t mean anything good. Matt was regretting invoking that world ending event.

Shiro’s hand closed reflexively at his sides, searching for knives that hadn’t been there in months, while Matt started leafing through the lists of insults he hadn’t had the time to use against the witch yet. He had a whole repertoire from which to pick, but finding the perfect repartee was an art.

The long shadow of the witch spread across the faint light outside their cell and Shiro’s fingers wrapped around Matt’s wrist, dragging the smaller man behind his hulking shoulders, which, though he would never admit it, did all kinds of things to Matt’s hammering heart. The shadow gave way to the actual woman, and Matt felt more than saw Shiro’s shoulders tense, his whole body going rigid at the sight. Matt was thankful the paladin was big enough to completely obscure the cell door. The witch’s face was often more gruesome and traumatizing than her actual experiments.

‘You’re awake.’ A statement, made in a voice like sandpaper and nightmares. Matt fought a shiver. ‘Good, give me the other one.’ The words were spoken so flippantly, a random order thrown across the cell like a pleasantry, had the women actually been able of a such a feat, that Matt heard himself scoff. The sound quickly cut off when Shiro slowly spun on his feet and faced him, his face nothing more than a mask, his eyes like twin amethyst shining through white bangs.

’S-shiro?’ Matt chocked out, tripping over his own feet to step back, away from the man who was clearly no longer his paladin, but found the wall already at his back. He searched the taller man’s expression, but his features were flat, more at home on a corpse than on a man who could still crack a grin in the darkest pits of hell.

‘Now.’ The witch ordered, and this time, Matt could have sworn he felt the crack of magic like a whip as Shiro’s hand shot out and wrapped around his bad shoulder, eliciting a pained cry from the short man. Had he not been looking, had he not been scouring Shiro’s expression for even a drop of the man he knew, Matt would have missed the faintest crease in his eyebrows, like a pained grimace, before his expression went flat again. The hand curled into a vice against the already swelling skin and Matt couldn’t help a second yelp of pain as fire raced up and down his arm. He definitely would not be wielding a weapon anytime soon. ‘Bring him.’

Matt could do nothing but keep up as the wall of a paladin dragged him out of the cell and down the dimly lit passageway carved into the very rock, which lead back to the lab, following the shuffling footsteps of the witch.

‘Shiro,’ he tried, gasping with every step as the taller man wrenched him along with a tug on his recently dislocating shoulder. ‘Shiro!’ But the man was impenetrable, deaf to his own actions, even as Matt dug his heels in to try and stop their advancement, and only managed to summon black edges to his vision as his mind swam through the haze of pain. ‘You fucking oaf,’ He breathed out in a strangled gasp, tripping over himself, and watched through the blur of agony and betrayal the paladin’s own steps falter.

‘You man-child.’ Another misstep.

‘You illiterate self-sacrificial bastard.’ The grip on his arm lightened and Matt felt some blood returning to more essential faculties.

‘You absolute idiot that for some godforsaken reason I have deemed fit to fall for.’ The man straight up stopped, his feet freezing misstep. Matt could have cried from the relief. He tugged his arm free and fell against the cave wall with a soft cry. ‘For fuck’s sake Shiro, you have to stop turning on me, you’re going to get me killed.’ Matt muttered under his breath, his mouth tasting of salt and copper. He looked up through ginger bangs at the man standing stock still in the middle of the hallway, both hands curled into painfully tight fists, his expression pinched as twinned colors danced across his irises in the fire light.

‘Now!’ Came the sharp order, and Matt, against his better judgement, looked to the end of the hallway, to the mouth of the cave that gave onto the lab, to the witch. She stood no more than five feet tall, rivalling Matt’s record for most retched personality compressed into so much square space, but the evil just ooze out of her, impossible to contain. Her skin, where it would be seen between the heavy bandages covering every inch of skin, was blistered and burned, greenish in the best of places, charred beyond recognition in others. Heavy goggles hid her eyes, but Matt always imagined her to hold a perpetual scowl, even if her mouth was hidden beneath a thick leather mask. Thick straps kept it fastened, tied behind her head, where her skull could be seen under the few thin patches of ratty hair still visible. She held a wand in one gnarled hand, and Matt wanted to vomit.

Shiro’s hand was back around his arm, squeezing what little hold Matt still had on the events right out of his mind as stars burst into his vision at the pain.

‘Fuck!’ He chocked out, frowning at the deep purple pools staring back at him from the false face of his lover. Matt struck out.

The punch caught Shiro against the jaw, probably doing more damage to Matt's knuckles than it had Shiro’s uncanny sharp jawline, but it did have some effect, because the placid expression curled into sour displeasure, and suddenly the hands weren’t on his arm but around his neck.

‘Shir-‘ but the oxygen very abruptly stopped being supplied to his brain and his vocal chords clamped shut. Matt struck out again, catching Shiro’s cheek, his injured arm, but the man only tightened his hold, dragging Matt up the cave wall until his feet were dangling uselessly beneath him, kicking out but meeting nothing but unresponsive flesh. Darkness crept across his vision and his eyes flickered wildly across the man’s face, searching, praying for something like recognition to flash across it. His nails dug like claws into the man’s forearms. ‘Shiro’ He gasped out, with the last remaining breath in his lungs.

Brown swirled back into Shiro’s irises, but Matt had long gone unconscious.

When he came to, Matt blinked open his eyes and saw the sky for the first time in weeks. It was brighter than he remembered. His body was nothing more than one drawn out groan away from completely giving up, and when he finally found the strength to blink the sun out of his eyes and ask himself what the hell had happened, the only memory that flitted back to his mind were twin amethyst eyes. The bruises around his neck did not fade for days, and Matt did not see Shiro for years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Birthday Val! Sorry for the trauma! <3


End file.
